Dewa Shigeto

Dewa Shigeto

Danshaku Dewa Shigetō ( Japanese 出 羽 重 遠 ; born January 17, 1856 in Aizu - han ; † January 27, 1930 in Tokyo ) was a Japanese admiral in the Imperial Navy .

Life

Dewa was born the son of a samurai . In his youth he joined the Byakkotai ("White Tiger Unit"), a reserve unit in the fiefdom of Aizu, and fought in the Boshin War of 1868 in the Battle of Aizu . He later attended the 5th course (1872-1874) of the Imperial Naval Academy ( Kaigun Heigakkō ) and graduated from the class as the sixth best of 43 cadets. He was then used on the ships Takao Maru and the screw corvette Tsukuba and promoted to midshipman in August 1878 . A little later he came to the ironclad Fuso and the following year to the gunboat Hosho , where he was promoted to ensign at sea in 1880 . From December 1880 he served for three years on the ironclad Ryujo and was promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade towards the end of his service . This was followed by uses on the Amagi gunboat and the Asama screw corvette . In 1885 Dewa took part in a trip to Great Britain to pick up the protected cruiser Naniwa built at Armstrong-Whitworth . In his following year of service on this first " Elswick cruiser " built for Japan , he acted as the chief navigational officer. Before returning in the summer of 1886, he was promoted to lieutenant captain.

In October 1886 Dewa took over a post as division officer ( buntai-cho ) on the Naniwa's sister ship, the Takachiho , which he held for a year. He then served for two years in the staff of the "standby flotilla" ( Jobi Shokantai ) before he came as first officer on the newly commissioned cruiser Takao . Here he served again under the later Navy Minister Yamamoto Gonnohyōe , who had already been his superior on board the Naniwa , and was promoted to corvette captain in 1890 . From 1891 to 1893 Dewa was active in various departments of the Navy Ministry before he received his first independent command with the gunboat Akagi . In 1894 he brought the gunboat Tatsuta, built near Armstrong-Whitworth, to Japan. In the same year he became chief of staff of the patrol fleet ( Keibi Kantai ) and the resulting western fleet ( Saikai Kantai ). This protected the home waters during the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895). At the end of the year he was appointed chief of staff of the Combined Fleet commanded by Itō Sukeyuki , after being promoted to sea captain.

After the end of the war, Dewa moved back to the Navy Ministry, where he worked in the office for naval affairs ( Gunmu-kyoku ) and from 1896 also sat on the staff of the construction department ( Rinji Kenchikubu ). In 1898 Dewa was sent again to Great Britain to pick up the armored cruiser Tokiwa , which was built there , and which he then commanded for a year. In May 1900 he was promoted to rear admiral and received command of the standby fleet ( Jobi Kantai ). A year later he became head of the shipping bureau in the Yokosuka Marine District. On October 29, 1902, Dewa was appointed to the post of head of the Naval Affairs Bureau in the Ministry of the Navy and was also appointed Vice-Chief of the Admiralty's Staff. He was also appointed as a member of the Admiralty Committee ( Kaigun Shokan Kaigi ).

In October 1903 Dewa returned to his post as commander of the standby fleet and in December, as part of a reorganization, became commander of the 3rd Cruiser Squadron of the newly formed 1st Fleet , which he also led in the Russo-Japanese War that began in February 1904 . Under his leadership, the squadron took part in the surprise attack on Port Arthur on 8/9. February which initiated the war. Promoted to Vice Admiral in June 1904 , Dewa also took part in the naval battle in the Yellow Sea on August 10, 1904 and the decisive naval battle at Tsushima on 27/28. Involved in May 1905. Shortly after the victory in the latter, he received command of the newly formed 4th Fleet, with which he took part in the landing operations during the occupation of Sakhalin and then brought the Japanese delegation to Portsmouth (USA), where the peace treaty was negotiated.

After the dissolution of the 4th fleet in December 1905, Dewa received command of the 2nd fleet as the successor to Kamimura Hikonojō . In November 1906 he became chief of the Naval Training Office ( Kaigun Kyoiku Honbu ). In September 1907 he was awarded the title of danshaku ("baron"). In May 1908 Dewa returned to the head of the 2nd Fleet. In December of the following year he became Commander-in-Chief of the Sasebo Naval District and, after two years, Commander-in-Chief of the 1st Fleet. In the latter position, he was promoted to admiral in July 1912. In December 1913 he moved up for the late Prince Takehito as a naval advisor to the Supreme War Council ( Gunji Sangikan Kaigi ), where he sat until 1920.

In 1914 Dewa headed the commission of inquiry into the Siemens scandal , which led to the resignation of the Yamamoto government. In the spring of 1915 he visited the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco as a representative of Japan (to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal the previous year), where he met, among others, Vice President Thomas Riley Marshall and Foreign Secretary William Jennings Bryan .

He was transferred to the reserve in 1920 and retired from military service five years later. In retirement, he took part in activities to preserve the memory of the Boshin War in his home region of Aizu. Dewa Shigeto died on January 27, 1930 at the age of 74.

Web links

Commons : Dewa Shigeto  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Dewa, Shigeto , in: Hiroshi Nishida: Materials of the Imperial Japanese Navy (English)
• Dewa, Shigeto on the pages of the National Parliamentary Library of Japan

Individual evidence

1. ^ Frank Morton Todd: The story of the exposure; being the official history of the international celebration held at San Francisco in 1915 to commemorate the discovery of the Pacific Ocean and the construction of the Panama Canal , Panama-Pacific International Exposition Company, 1921, p. 27; Admiral Dewa's Visit , in: The Commoner , Vol. 15, No. March 3, 1915.

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus, Dewa is the family name, Shigetō the first name.